@jacquesvol it's true watched it on sience channel. Mars does indeed have liquid water and frozen water but the sample tested revealed that the water is I think if I remember right 1000 times saltier than the ocean so if consumed it'd kill. I'm full of useless info! Lol

@nog642 no life that we know of yet. The presence of water suggests that there were possibly conditions that support life on mars previously - even if its bacteria that still counts. And since i think most of our findings have been limited to near surface materials we don't know yet if there is/something like what we know of as bacteria or archeae or even eukaryotes in the layers underneath the surfaces. That's why this is so exciting though because what if they do have life on mars and how different would they be from life on our earth in order to adapt to the environment on mars?

@TheLuckyPizzaDog Presumably you're drinking water fro the surface. And they can easily just put the water under a microscope to look for any bacteria. And as for the viruses thing you can't have viruses without life so the only viruses there would be Earth viruses, and just the kind you come into contact with every day.

It is possible though that there is underground life allowing martian viruses to propagate and that the viruses made it to the surface even if the life didn't and the water could be contaminated. This is why you test it. On some blood samples or something. But this is highly unlikely anyways.

@nog642 a while back i think they found indications that there was water underneath the surface of mars so its also possible the water could be drawn from there. Depends on OPs mood I guess. Its location could allow that water to house Martian microoganisms. With regards to viruses, you're correct that viruses cannot reproduce or survive very long without a host cell - however some *are* able to remain outside of living cells as genetic material wrapped in protein. We can't rule out that maybe there could be viral strains on mars that can survive as virons for long times. Martian virons. Lol. As for the unlikelihood of water underneath the surface housing bacteria and possibly also strains of viruses, it is not yet known. Which is why a sample of water would be so great and would be fascinating to look at in a lab assuming microorganisms on mars are similar to the ones on earth and we could visualize them with what we have. But all of this is just postulation anyways.

@jacquesvol yeah, I was referencing the doctor who episode like ladymcbeth said lol. A group of explorers? scientists? astronauts? Drank contaminated water and turned into water zombies capable of infecting others with just a drop of water. They had to blow up the space station to keep the infection from potentially spreading back to earth.

@nog642 LOL. In that case yes. If they bought it back and found there was nothing in the water to transmit then someone who didn't know would catch nothing by drinking it. Conversely, if they bought it back and found something in the water, someone who didn't know and drank it would probably catch something. Qed. Also the mars rover currently deployed isn't quite equipped to isolate microorganisms and viruses on the level we'd be able to with proper equipment in a lab. So if you want to assume, without proper experiments and controls, that there is no life on mars, then that's your prerogative.

@nog642 lol the question was "if you had the money, would you pay a $1,000,000 to drink an ounce of water from mars?" To answer *your* question though, it's a no. Lol I went on a whole spiel and then thought better of it. - you don't typically find colonies out in nature. A number of factors influence this - nutrient availability, environmental stressors, competition, predation (long shot). You can though, depending on how the circumstances lay out I guess. - you don't necessarily need to look for colonies to detect bacterial presence. You can isolate genetic samples from stuff like soil samples or swabs and def you can make cultures, or use a scanning electron microscope to detect bacteria or use a fluorescent microscope with staining but either way, I doubt the mars rover currently deployed is equipped to use these methods. And its also assuming martian bacteria is similar to earth bacteria. Anyways I'm happy to discuss this further but prob not on op's post.

What Guys Said 18

I wrote yes, only because you said "If I had the money" meaning I'm probably STUPID rich, so lets do STUPID RICH things like pay a million and drink some mars water. And get my ass in guiness world record, maybe even write a whole book about it. Make my million back ! I don't know LOL

I dunno, why not! Seems stupid enough to try! hahaha! I had every intention of saying "no" by the way, but if I had an extra mil to spend, then sure, prove it's martin water, and fingers-crossed I won't become the focus of some crazy movie or TV series! LOL! (Pointless spontaneity is fun sometimes!) ;p